Re: Another others for maintainer?

[John Wiegley <johnw@newartisans.com>]

>>>>> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> Thanks, but you make this sound like if tomorrow I'm overrun by a bus, Emacs
> will die, or at least stagnate. Which of course is not true. There are quite
> a few people here without whom Emacs development would not have been what it
> is, let alone what it (hopefully) will be.

A good point. I was referring more to your combination of consistency and
energy, with long experience in the project. That's more valuable than maybe
you give yourself credit for.

> If you don't have enough time to actively engage in technical issues, like
> discussing development and design/implementation decisions, reviewing
> patches, fixing bugs, etc. -- then the above scenario is not viable. There's
> no chance in the world I alone will be able to deal with that workload: I
> have neither the time nor knowledge (nor talent, to be honest) to do that.
> So we will need at least some of the team you describe here:

It's true, I don't have the time it would take to do what you do now, Eli.
We'll need to make building up our "development team" a first and crucial
task, as you say.

> P.S. I think many people don't realize how many simple, mundane tasks are
> part of what we call "Emacs maintenance". Stuff like fixing spelling errors,
> committing auto-generated files, fixing unsafe or sub-optimal code revealed
> by compiler warnings, closing bugs that were resolved but left open, merging
> bug reports for the same bug, fixing typos in generated log messages,
> managing our mailing lists and the Web site -- all this is part of the job.
> That we currently have a few kind people like Glenn, Paul, Juanma, and
> others silently doing this behind the scenes (look at "git log" to see what
> I mean) is sheer luck. People who want to help could start with these small
> but important tasks. With time and experience, they will gain confidence in
> their talents and abilities, and -- no less important -- upgrade their
> status within the community, and that will help them decide which larger
> tasks they could take upon themselves.

This paragraph is perfect. I'll draft up a call for volunteers as soon as I
can find some time this weekend, starting from what you've written here.

John